Of Swords and Jasmines
by thoughtsofawanderer01208
Summary: RK series of drabbles and oneshots. (Canon/AU)
1. About You

**_When they would ask me about you…_**

… I'd say you're a burst of sunshine, a breath of fresh air. When you walk, you bring spring in your steps. It's like you're always happy about something, like you're incessantly looking for ways to cheer up people. And I'd suppose you throw the most arresting smile. It reaches your eyes, your pupils becoming, for a minute, two brilliant orbs that could light up not only an entire room, but also someone's entire life. So genuine. I'd also say you're an amalgam of charm, humor, and obstinacy. A maze of contradictions. A rare fusion: a magnetic blend.

**_When they would ask me how we met…_**

… I'd suppose we didn't go with the polite one. You actually stopped me, bokken in your hand, and sword in my waist and were all too ready to lash out. I helped you defeat those bastards who dirtied your family name and you asked me to stay. I was abruptly thrust into a different realm; a spot that I must have seen in a dream. **_And the longer I stayed around, I was pulled deeper into an otherworldly dimension, a universe where the idea of you and I is very much possible._**

**_When they would ask me why 'we' cannot become a reality…_**

… I'd say time is against us today. It's not yet the right moment; something equally serious as this shouldn't be hurried. In a perfect world, it would be easy to simply fall in love and be together. Only this is the real world. On that point are still battles to be fought and win and questions to be resolved. So we are confronted with this reality that **_it's not yet our time_**.

**_When they would ask me if I can wait…_**

… I'd say yes. Wait for wounds to heal, wait for her heart to fall only on mine. You make me conceive of better days, and then I will wait until everything is crystal. If you're nevertheless still there, standing out in front of me and will still accept me after the rubble has settled, then I'll know… we'll both recognize. That this time, is our **_forever_**…


	2. Confession

You were sitting beside me.

You listened as I told stories around my life that very few people knew about. Silent, sitting still, but you weren't looking at me as I poured out my darkest pasts and unraveled the complicated chapters of my life, laying them open along the table so that you would know how tumultuous my world was and decide whether you'll leave, or stay right where you are… Silent, sitting still, and head bent.

"_Um, I'll… I'll go get some more tea."_

"_You shouldn't have to do that yourself, I'll help."_

"_I'll go get us some snacks. I'm kinda hungry."_

"_How come you know where we keep the snacks?"_

They left us alone…

Only then you looked and smiled at me.

I listened as you told bits and pieces about your life while we waited for them, creating in my head a seemingly vague idea of who you are. Staccato, the manner in which you spoke about your life. Hesitant, like you weren't sure you wanted to share those things with me. Your voice trailed away, words between us became scarce. It felt as if we entered uncharted territory, a place neither of us should be in, yet we let ourselves fall victim to the afternoon's spell. You placed your hand in mine, but then I took your hands and slowly intertwined with mine, an unsure gesture and a step forward to the possibility, a departure from the platonic.

We locked eyes.

A burst of understanding, trust, passion, hunger, and desire in every imaginable spectrum. Friendship set ablaze, resolve to turn away dissolved into a haze. Soft murmurs, scorching stares, yearning feelings. It was everything all at once.

A thunderous silence and then they came back.

"_Kenshin… Please, let's hear the rest."_

"_Very well… I will continue."_

I continued my story because as what you've said you wanted to learn all of it. I poured it all out, leaving no information unsaid. I was terrified to look at you this time, because I felt so raw, so naked. I was too ashamed of what I would see in your eyes. We were all still. I've nothing left to say.

They all retreated, but you remained silent, sitting still.

And then you stood up, said your good night and turned your back but I stopped you. You looked back, a small smile in your face. I walked toward you, you waited, and though I wasn't certain, I hugged you. I didn't want to separate myself from you, but as the night separated us, I was reminded of reality and the gravity of my stupidity. My reason and emotions were at war. It's a battle I never wanted, a war that I know am not going to win, yet a sweet struggle I knew I must face.

**_Reason tells me to stop. Only my heart says otherwise._**


	3. Grieve

_**Father has passed away**_ and my heels are burning. I can hear the skin crisping off in clean flakes as the ground rises up to keep me running and breathing. I am mindful that some people I know were worried about me as the autumn wind sting my face. I wonder what will happen once the wind discovers that all of my sweat has gone and I have no more to surrender.

As I blur past the road, I think of how father used to read me his poetry when I was a child. I recall him writing a letter every time that he would entrust to teach or sometimes merely to move to town. I think of how he often reminds me of my irritability. I remember him checking my warrior stance and the correct grip of my bokken.

I have been running for some time now. My chest squeezes with deep resistance, but I couldn't slow down. Each step is one further away from the man who was once alive. I squeeze my eyelids down and leave them to stay shut. I do not want to see the world without him in it.

"I'm so sorry for your loss," They told me; I inclined my head. At that moment, I wished that I had bought a jar the day that father died. That way, I could have captured all of _**"I'm sorry"**_ and put them in the jar next to my side of the bed on the nights I feign sleep. When the darkness came I would be able to raise the lid and hold the sadness from overwhelming me. Smiling at the thought of all of my _**"firefly sorry"**_ fluttering about my room, I muttered several lies to alleviate the silence.

"_**He's all I've had. He was very young,"**_ I stated. Yes, so young, such a shame. I examined my calloused hands while I consistently bite the lower right side of my lip. More scarred tissue.

Today I know where I am running. I am running to the place where we spent the afternoon last. He told me that we both enjoy the river. This love affair started the first time he set my foot on this river.

When I finally see the riverbank, I let my feet slowly and take my breaths in heaves. I gaze at the river as it runs. I walk fast forward and sit at the edge of the water. If father were here, we would scold me for being impatient for the nth time. But today, on the third day since father has died, I am alone. I sink my toes deep into the water, letting it lap onto my feet and soak them. I hang my head low and listen to the piercing call of a bird. I let him cry for me.

I think of the things I should have done for father. I plot a list of all the arguments I will never be able to resolve with him. I move into denial for another moment – I need to talk to him, I know that he'll answer – then I am angry for all the ways I let him down. I live over several conversations yelled in moments of adolescent angst. I feel my face burning with regret before that I start bargaining with God.

I promise that I will never pull any pranks with his students, I will cook all delicious food that he likes, I will constantly check my temper and I'll start wearing my mother's kimono.

I add my own apology, for father, _**to the jar of fireflies.**_

I turn back my attention to the river and watch her in silence. Swishing quietly through the banks, I feel a doleful cry brush past my lips and I squeeze my hand against my stomach. Is it possible to keep sorrow restrained, if you push hard enough? My restraint weakens as the water laps into my feet. A wounded animal, I feel, an explosion of sorrow spilling onto the sand. For the first time since father has died, I let one cry crash after another.

Gaining control after his death is like gripping a bokken with a non-dominant hand. But I am strong. I will endure. We women, we endure.

**_Kamiya Koshijiro, I need you._**

I swallow the stones in my throat. I want to write for father and his un-seeing eyes:

_This humble effort is for the kind and gentle side__  
__that we all need to work on.__  
__I wish I had known and had done a lot of things for him__  
__I thought he would still be in my reach.__  
__I know now that the next few years will be diminished__  
__because I failed in ways I never knew to try.__  
__He managed it better than most, but had to depart early._


	4. Love in Adverbs

**Love in Adverbs**

**Platonically.** It's friendship that has gone deep enough to manifest itself as genuine love; as moving and palpable as any of the others. Your happiness is intrinsically linked to mine and your unhappiness as well. You brought me a love that left me feeling cared for, in a way I'm not sure I've found in anyone else. Leveled, as you continually check my ego. Wanted, not just with your perpetual ego boosts but also with your willingness to have me sit around and have a tea even if there's no reason for me to be there at all. Stupid, in all the ways that I should feel stupid, because I'm being stupid and can be stupid, and should know that. Thanks for making me feel loved, unaware, awed, flawed, and for the first time, _**worthy**_.

**Violently.** Yours was a fierce love and one full of denial. I refused to accept it, to even believe that it was love and even when I was driven to confront it through this struggle, I opposed it as hard as I could. You and I had some misunderstandings as two people could. I loved you with a fierceness that manifested itself mostly in protecting you. But the violence certainly wasn't limited to the negative; for every scar that I had just to protect you, and there were friends telling us to quit our games or calling us soul mates. The clichés rang true for us, and while the lows were low, the highs were high and when we were on, we were on. The love I have for you taught me how to be playful, and I love you without restraint. I love you with emotions overflowing, leaving me empty and blindsided. It's unwavering, so deep-rooted, and incomprehensible, and heartbreaking at times.

**Devastatingly.** My love for you is easily the most heart wrenching love of all, and the kind that sometimes envelops me in sadness so strong that I become temporarily crippled. It's painful, you're painful, but I'm the one that caused the pain. You mean the world to me. I know I'm not always very good at showing that, that sometimes I'm downright awful at it. I know that may be the most frustrating thing about us, _**about me**_. But it's undeniably true. You're one of the most important and influential people in my life; you've meant more to me than anyone else. I've never been able to even come close to accurately or articulately describing the love we share, or at least that which I have for you. You make me possessive. Honest. Mean. You can bring out both the best and the worst of me, and I scare myself. I may not know all there is to know about you. But I do know that you have one of the most forgiving and beautiful hearts of anyone I know. That you have looked out for me more than you probably should have. You've created a love that's overwhelming, that breaks me each time I think of the last incident with _Enishi's Jinchuu_.

**Fleetingly.** There are days you make me giddy, when getting a smile from you brings out the boy in me again and I'm smiling and acting goofy and embarrassing. The love reserved for you comes and goes, swelling with each smile, but never consuming me. It's flighty and exciting and occasionally dizzying, but never grounded in true emotion. You've been fun, taking my heart along with you as you flirt, laugh and wink, but never moving anywhere.

**Truly.** All encompassing with nothing mad about it. You made love mean that I simply cared about you more than anyone else. That there is less to nothing that I could see being worth not having you, that I am willing to sacrifice me and my happiness for yours. But you don't like that and it just is, I just did and will always do. Love is simply a matter of the fact that you make it to where you are in my heart and that we are how we are now. Love became defined as the idea that it's rare that talking to you couldn't help things that you, too, are all too willing to sacrifice for me. Love became that you were what I wanted as a constant above all else. Our love is redefined.

_**I've loved you all, but never has the word love is enough.**_


	5. In the Eyes of the Beholder

_**In the Eyes of the Beholder…**_

The woman I am with does not see me as the body I come in. She does not look at me from the outside or see only the outer appearance. She does not regard me as just the amber-eyed demon or the violet-eyed wanderer or define me by my cross shaped scar. She does not see me as my image in the eyes of passers-by. She does not consider my physical structure as _**"me."**_

She views me as a person, a human thinker, who demands a body to support him to the ground. She sees me as ideas that need a head to fill and an **_eternity_** that needs some time to kill, and she sees me not as a way but as a will. She sees me as feelings that occupy my physical space and as expressions that manifest themselves in my face. She views me as a partner not a prize, not as a means to an end, and when we look at each other we see what lies behind our eyes. She sees me as limitless, unrestricted by my size. She sees me as **_myself_**, as the words I speak and the thoughts I think, as the dreams I chase, as my hopes, and my happiness, and all the fears I face.

I do not regard the woman I am with as the body she comes in. She is not formed of her jet black hair or her sapphire blue eyes. I don't see her as her calloused hands and bokken. I do not look at her and see only her gi and hakama that covers her torso. I don't consider her as the scratch marks or scars in her skin or most of them think _**a replacement**_. I do not confuse her body **_for her soul_**.

I regard her as an **_eternal supply of compassio_**n and as the music that her voice reaches. I see her as warm in winter and as inspiration and as the definition of unconditional love. I see her as acceptance, as hope, as faith. I watch her as her brilliant thoughts and her humor and her crazy sense of adventure. I regard her as an **_eternal sunrise_**. I see her as **_her soul_**. I do not regard the woman I'm with as the small, petite woman with a bokken on her waist that people see when they question with their eyes as we walk by; I see her as the bigger heart that forgives me for dragging her to hell– and them. I regard her as the kind, smart, wonderful woman everyone told me I should find… before they specified that none of that counts unless she's beautiful.

I see the woman I'm with as the way she cares for others, as the way she laughs at silly jokes, at the innocence of children and small animals and grimaces at liars and cheaters and the way she opens her house not only to the homeless but also to some sort of enemies. I see the woman I'm with as my renewed faith in humanity, as the lessons I have learned in love. I regard her as the overcoming of obstacles, as the soft water tension that holds up our tiny boat in an endless ocean. I regard her as the **_unbreakable chain_** that ties up all of us, as fireworks that lights up the evening skies. I regard her as the heartstrings that pull tight to wrap my hand up in hers.

I regard her as the encouragement she gives me and the love and the faith that she sets out into the world. I do not see her body as the barrier between my heart and hers or as the moat that blocks the rest of the world out of the palace in the middle. I see the woman I am with as the love I share with her and as the strength we give each other. I regard her as the goodness that she brings out in me. I see her as her character, as the woman she is, as the image her heart and soul portray. **_I see the woman I am with, in the same way that she sees me_**.

Maybe that is because she and I are the exception, and not the rule, the content rather than the cover, **_the flawed rather than the flawless_**.

Fortunately for me, I learned to love in spite of flaws and in spite of the world's bad examples, and that has taught me that my love is not about what other people see.

_**All that matters is the way I see her and the way that she sees me. **_


	6. While You Were Sleeping

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own **RK**…

While you were sleeping, I wondered if your dreams were sinking and sliding. I pondered over what new woods and streams you had left for.

While you were sleeping, I was puzzled why _**sleep**_ had soothed your eyes with its hymns and not mine tonight. Perhaps it's my fortune to watch you while you were sleeping and my curious consciousness just wouldn't cease.

While you were sleeping, I thought of numbers. I asked too many questions why of all people you chose me. I solved a question or two, I gave up on another. Because honestly, I don't want you to choose another. I made lists of things _**I want to do with you**_. While you were sleeping, I became more efficient, and planning against the background noise of your occasional soft snores.

I felt the outline of your arm as it cushioned like my secondary pillow; the softness of your skin and the entanglement of our limbs. I could feel your breath against my forehead. The warmth of your breathing was potent. My thoughts rendered in defeat. All doubt subsided. All scattering confusion ceased.

In your arms, watching you like this, I gained stability and clarity. At that moment, I discovered a certainty I never wanted to awake from. Because this moment, while you were sleeping, is when I entertained the thought, and pondered maybe, just maybe, _**I am worthy of you**_. And with that comforting realization, my eyes felt heavy to the lullaby of your breath. Slowly, I departed from the awakened and set off with you to the unconscious realm of dreams.


	7. Ohayou

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin…**_

"_**Kaoru… dono." **_

Here I am again, rapping at your shoji, waiting for you to wake up so that we could have breakfast together. You once told me that there was no need for me to do this trivial thing and that you didn't want to bother me with the more important things that I have to do. But I want to, for my own selfish reason that I want to be the first person that you will see and to be the first person to discover how beautiful your eyes were in the morning. I don't want to share those looks with Yahiko or Sanosuke. Because just looking at your eyes I see the promise of a wonderful day.

And then I realized that we've almost shared everything. We've shared a home, friends, food, beliefs and even fought some battle. _**Only that I don't want to share you with**__**others**_. While you consider me as your protector because I let you see that mask. _**I no longer see you that way**_.

I didn't know when it started or how it all begun. All I know was that my feelings have changed. _**And though I wasn't made to wish or to want, but deep inside I truly want you to be mine**_.

I have no idea if you feel the same way for me. I don't want to misread your gentle care or your brilliant smiles because honestly, it's hard to take when you smile like that to almost everyone.

And then you came out of your room, bright and beautiful as ever. You wore your training gi and hakama with full confidence of a warrior. You have that fire in your soul that consumes me and for the first time _**I am not afraid to get**_ _**burned**_. I want to feel the warmth of your fire since I lived in a dreadful cold for such a long time.

You looked at me and flashed that smile. How I love that smile! And I made a vow to myself that I will do anything just to keep those smiles. "Ohayou, Kenshin!" You said.

'_It is indeed a good morning, my love.'_

'_Kenshin no baka!'_ Of course, those were not the words that came out from my mouth after all I am such a coward. Instead of saying what I longed to say, I answered you with just a simple "Ohayou, Kaoru-dono!"

One would think that the once hitokiri had no fear. They were all so wrong. I feared that if I tell her and if she doesn't feel the same way I will entirely lose her.

Perhaps one day I will gather all my strength and tell her the truth, but for today and the coming days, allow me to enjoy this morning habit and have this altogether to myself.


	8. Who She Is

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Rurouni Kenshin…

* * *

Her name was Kamiya Kaoru, a name that could be used both for male and female. And like her name she was a maze of contradictions –defiance and poetry, passion and temper. She was strong enough to fight for her beliefs, too stubborn to fight on after a cause was lost, but generous enough to give all whatever she had. She's a young woman with a pale skin, bright blue eyes, pink lips, calloused hands and tough mind. She had naïve dreams that people laughed about and a towering ambition not only for herself, but for her _**family**_ as well.

She may not be a good cook, but she was ingenious with a needle. She fixed our clothes with utmost care just like how she healed my broken heart and spirit. She wore her kimonos and training gi and looked more capable and competent for anything that the world would throw at her. She was a Kamiya, and though fortune hadn't smiled at her just like other people, she was determined to make her own way.

She may be loud at times, especially if she wanted to straighten you out, but she could also be quietly domineering, the kind of woman a man could actually depend on.

She wasn't the type to avoid any of her feelings, rather she let them come. She let them race to the limit whatever the consequences.

And though I had recognized from the very beginning that _**I am not worthy of her**_, I still intend to make her mine.


End file.
